The Academy Awards rewards actresses that play prostitutes or strippers in movies.
They say that sex sells, but this adds a whole new dimension to the old adage.
According to the website OscarHookers.com, every recipient of the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress Academy Awards have, at one point in their careers, played a character whose life is directly related to the sex industry.
In fact, in a Wall Street Journal piece titled “Stripping Your Way to Success“, reporters describe how woman are only awarded for an Oscar after playing a stripper or a prostitute. For example, the following actresses played a stripper or a prostitute in the past: Natalie Portman, Charlize Theron, Mira Sorvino, Elisabeth Shue, Julia Roberts, Jodie Foster, Greta Garbo, Nicole Kidman, Elizabeth Taylor, Kim Basinger, Jane Fonda. In addition, the very first actress to win an Oscar was Janet Gaynor, who played a hooker in 1928’s Street Angel.
But, it begs the question: Why do acresses take these roles, and why does Hollywood reward them? “There aren’t and have never been a lot of great roles for women in Hollywood,” says Patty Jenkins, who directed Charlize Theron in Monster. “Sadly, that creates this cliché that if a woman plays a prostitute, she wins an Oscar.”
Jeanine Basinger, the leader of Wesleyan’s Film Studies department, has a different perspective. “The way to land an Oscar as a woman is either to take off your makeup or put on a lot more. You’re either a prostitute/stripper or you’re a mother/nun.”
But some Hollywood actresses embrace the roles. Marisa Tomei was nominated for Best Actress in the movie The Wrestler says she embraced her role as a stripper. “My aim in the film was to honor the women I met and to represent them in a meaningful way. I wish there was a movie called The Stripper because I found out so much about these women, like the physical toll that dancing takes on a stripper’s body, and on her feet, that we couldn’t fit into the movie.”
It’s clearly understandable that strippers and prostitutes often have storylines that are more complex and more interesting than roles like “ugly girlfriend” or “faithful wife.”
